Child Murder Leads to Violent Games Being Banned in Turkey

Metin 2, a fantasy-MMORPG, and “similar” games have been banned in Turkey after a 14 year old was murdered.

The boy was a Metin 2 player and had claimed he was a hacker who stole Metin 2 passwords and sold the characters for profit. After his death, there was huge speculation that he was killed after a Metin 2 deal had gone wrong as he had last been seen leaving an internet cafe.

After an investigation, it turned out that the boy was in fact killed by an addict but no link between the game and the murder was found.

Irrespective, the entire saga raised eyebrows and the Directorate General of Security prepared a report on online gaming and its impact on youth. Upon release of the report, The Secretary of State decited to ban the game for minors and sent out orders to the country’s governors.

All this happened in late 2009. It was thought that it was merely an announcement to calm government criticisms following the murder, however that does not appear to be the case and the ban is now officially in order.

Internet cafes are receiving written confirmation of the new regulation which states:

“In order to protect children and young people, games which are violent in nature and are known to display addictive tendencies are now banned to be played in all internet cafes.”

It is not clear exactly which games are banned because the statement only says; “Metin 2 and games alike”. The statement also refrains from explaining exactly what “alike” means.

We have consulted a Turkish lawyer on the matter, Mustafa Umut Yildiz, and he has also confirmed that the statement is not clear and there will be a lot of problems passing the ruling. As if that wasn’t enough. the statement also says that internet cafes should block all the websites that can be used to access games violent in nature.

As you may know YouTube is currently banned and cannot be accessed from within Turkey right now. At this rate, an enormous number of gaming sites will share the same fate.